The present disclosure relates to a vehicle lock controller for controlling locking and unlocking of vehicle doors.
Conventionally, a system for locking/unlocking (securing/releasing) vehicle doors according to the operation performed on an operation unit provided on a wireless communication device carried by a user has been in widespread use. Such a wireless communication device is provided, for example, in the form of a device integrally formed with the vehicle key or a separate key-ring type device. A vehicle lock controller, for example, in the form of a body ECU (Electronic Control Unit) provided on the vehicle communicates wirelessly with the wireless communication device to lock/unlock the doors. Certain vehicle lock controllers have the function of automatically locking the doors after a predetermined time has elapsed if the doors were unlocked in response to an operation performed on the wireless communication device.
JP 2008-88737 describes a vehicle door lock controller (vehicle lock controller) that locks the doors of a vehicle if no door opening is detected within a predetermined timeout period after the doors were unlocked based on a user operation. This vehicle door lock controller detects the location of the vehicle when the user unlocks the doors and sets the length of the timeout period based on the detected location of the vehicle. When the vehicle door lock controller receives a door unlock request from the user within a predetermined time period after automatically locking the doors upon the lapse of the timeout period, the controller learns the location of the vehicle at that time as the location for which the timeout period should be extended.